Doing Lunch
by Objessions
Summary: Tag to Episode 10 CD-ROM and Hoagie Foil. Because I love an opportunity for some inner monologue, bromance, and slight h/c. All standard disclaimers apply, of course, but if they would just let me in that writers' room for a hot minute, things could get super fun, I'm just sayin'.
1. Chapter 1

Doing Lunch

Mac had spent a fair amount of the long drive north arguing with himself about what he was up to. The last time he'd gone off on his own in his search for his father, even he would admit, things had ended less than ideally. Although, he reasoned, even if he hadn't gone off to Paris alone, Murdoc's guys probably would have caught him at home.

He conveniently ignored (or at least talked over) the little voice in his head that told him if he hadn't been tired from the trip and distracted by his disappointment, not to mention worried about having hurt Jack's feelings, he probably wouldn't have just opened the door like some guy blissfully unaware of the dangers the world had to offer.

His inner dialogue, which he never seemed able to quite shut off, was very focused on justifying his actions today. Bozer wasn't home to account to (and Bozer worried more than Jack – although to be fair Bozer had been practicing that since they were kids) so when he'd gotten up before dawn to an empty house and seen a text from Jack that he was still too sore from Barcelona to go running with him so it would have to wait for another day, he'd made a snap decision.

Instead of just changing and going for a run on his own, in the hillier areas that he avoided when Jack tagged along because they just made him bitch about how old he was getting, he showered, dressed, gassed up his Jeep, and headed north to check out a lead that had popped up during a news item search the week before.

The further away from home he got, the more guilty he felt about not at least texting Jack back. And he realized that his lack of reply was going to get him a grumpy nosy phone call at some point, and he'd have to 'fess up. He didn't want to acknowledge that he maybe hadn't texted because it would warrant a phone call, because he sort of wanted Jack along, because as much as doing this alone sucked, part of him felt obligated, or if not obligated, confused. Mac was not used to feeling confused about much of anything.

Then again, maybe he was in the clear as far as his partner and newly appointed helicopter parent was concerned. The last few days, Jack had been preoccupied with what was going on with Riley. And he was still kind of banged up from their run in with the international art cartel in Spain. Between hovering over Ri and icing his injuries, Jack had been a little MIA in Mac's life this week. Maybe this was just perfect timing.

He swallowed hard as he pulled into the overgrown parking area for the cabin that was his father's last known address; the address that he'd first sent his letter to when Jack pestered him into it all those months ago. He probably wouldn't have come up here, but when he ran a search, on a hunch (he would never admit that to Jack in a million years – hunches were for guys like Jack, not analytical people like him damnit), he'd gotten a hit.

He'd seen the news report of a house fire out here, but the little blurb in the local weekly hadn't done justice to the total destruction of the place. Or the fact that no one had bothered to come out and clean up or even sift through the rubble for personal effects. There were odds and ends in the soot that told him once the fire was out and the investigation (which said possible arson, no viable suspects though) was over, no one had been back.

His first thought, other than that no matter how angry he still was with his dad for leaving when he was a kid he was still glad he hadn't been here when this happened – or at least if he had been he'd gotten out, was that it stunk. Smoke, and soot, and wood rot from the water used to douse the flames.

It was a particular smell that he'd always found unpleasant, even after putting out a fire in the pit at his house. In fact, as he sifted through the remains of his last real connection to his father's whereabouts, he was thinking he was going to want about ten showers when he got home, just to get the smell out of his nostrils.

When Jack made the inevitable phone call, Mac frowned. He should probably just answer it and tell him what was up. A short lecture on the phone would save him a longer more intense one in person. He swallowed hard. In a day already filled with disappointment and discomfort, he could do without one more thing to ruin his mood. At least if Jack lectured him later there could be beer involved. He sent the call to voicemail and kept looking around.

When he stepped on the board that made a distinct creek and a hollow think of empty space beneath, all those thoughts went right out the window. He was trained to notice the out of the ordinary, and in this case, all his senses were already on high alert.

He dropped down immediately, trying to pry up the board, feeling an almost frantic hope bubbling up in his chest. He couldn't figure out anything about those numbers in his watch. He'd even let Cryptography take a crack at it, and so far, nothing. If his dad left him the watch, he had to believe there were other clues along this trail to lead him where he needed to go.

The secret compartment, the old metal storage box, the insulated canister all added to his sense of hope. When all that his search yielded was some heat damaged 8 mm film he almost wanted to cry. He considered calling Riley. She was good with digitally enhancing images.

He squinted at the tape. It might be too wrecked for that. Damn it. But maybe she could … No, she had her own crap at the moment, and probably Jack was right on her elbow and he'd already decided he didn't feel like dealing with that.

Then he had an encouraging thought. Jill. She was a forensic tech and someone already well on her way to being a friend. She'd helped Bozer search the local pawnshops for Jack's stuff. It couldn't hurt to ask. Besides, something was bothering him. He had an odd sense of being watched. He looked around. Nothing. Barely even the wind stirring the trees.

This whole thing was making him paranoid. Then, he had the discouraging thought that even the paranoid have enemies.


	2. Chapter 2

Briefings that came after snarky demanding texts from the boss that included lots of exclamation points and more emojis than Jack usually used were never a good thing. And Mac sensed that Matty was less irritated with how long it had taken him to join the group and more distressed at what she was about to reveal, as she stood in front of the large screen in the War Room.

Jack could joke all he wanted about enjoying someone else being in the doghouse, but Mac also wanted to say he'd never felt out of the doghouse with Matty, since they'd met. Well, that wasn't true. After the Murdoc incident, she'd been so damned concerned and parental, so out of character, that it had freaked him out a little.

Not as much as learning there was an unaccounted for container of nerve gas potentially making its way into the hands of terrorists though. That freaked everybody out. It clearly freaked out Cage, since she was normally disinclined to share details of her service and she offered up her own experience witnessing VX gas in Syria.

Mac knew what the assignment was going to be before Matty finished saying so. Jack seemed to think that it would be an uncomplicated mission. Mac had the brief rueful thought that only recently they'd laughed about Madagascar being the only time they'd ever gotten lucky. The idea of going after and transporting nerve gas that was being hunted for by an active terrorist cell made the idea of ever being lucky again seem a lot less laugh-worthy.

Jack clearly took in the tense lines of Mac's face and the vaguely angry worried look on Riley's because he started being ridiculous again, minimizing the danger of the mission and baiting Matty into one of her patented glares. When Matty ordered Riley to stay at Phoenix Jack almost smiled, but he didn't miss the look on Mac's face as he strode out of the room. Something was bothering the kid, and whatever it was wasn't all the assignment.

0-0-0

Knowing what they were in for, based on the intel Riley had managed to gather for them, Mac spent a good portion of the flight to New York just trying to figure out the best way to breach the lab's security. Jack engaged in more nervous chatter than usual that seemed to skirt the topic of just where he'd been instead of going running with Mac that morning. He also didn't ask why Mac hadn't answered his calls or called back, which Mac marked as strange, but decided to let pass.

When they got to the lab, Mac and Jack went in, with Cage doing surveillance on the outside. Jack was still, uncharacteristically avoiding real conversation. Instead he was driving Mac a little crazy by using an office chair as an impromptu amusement park ride.

Although, Mac had to admit, Jack was embracing the improvising at least a little, even if only for entertainment purposes, while he constructed his brute force code breaker. He didn't want to explain to Jack that it was taking so long because there were literally 10 to the 5th power combinations that the little machine was currently chipping away at.

Because then he'd have to explain what 10 to the 5th power meant and he knew it would be hard to convince his partner that that little keypad actually held the potential for 100,000 permutations given the five digit entry code and the possible choices of 0-9. For his own part, Mac found doing the math oddly soothing.

Jack clearly did not, offering to shoot the lock even though he knew before Matty's sharp reprimand that it would be a terrible idea. Jack surprised no one with his assertion that he didn't do bored well. Mac just teasingly said he hadn't noticed, since he wasn't going to say over hot comms that their mutual disdain for the ordinary was probably part of why they were close friends despite the differences in their ages and interests.

Their banter about who they'd do lunch with was a pleasant momentary distraction that passed some time. Although Mac thought the fact that fictional people being on the table after he'd already given his answer was unfair. There were a lot of fictional people he'd like to share a meal with. Jack was always changing the damned rules of these little thought experiments just to give the cooler or more entertaining answer. I shouldn't bug him so much, but it sort of did.

He started to say something about it when they received news that the satellite feed was down. Mac had the familiar sinking in his gut that told him things were about to take a sharp turn down the wrong damned road. Again. Because apparently Madagascar was a fluke.

Mac started to think that maybe he'd been too hasty in his judgement of the situation when his code breaker worked almost as soon as the situations started to seem dire and he and Jack seemed to be getting away free and clear. Then, in a move that was starting to feel typical, Matty changed the rules and ordered the cannister back in the freezer. _Damn it._

Matty's order wasn't just unwelcome. It made no sense. They could just as easily track the mercs via satellite without the gas as they could by letting them have it. Since Singh was already tied to Chandra, it wasn't a leap to conclude that he'd head back to their HQ whether successful or not. Jack's face said everything Mac was thinking, but neither of their arguments or concerns seemed to mean anything to Matty.

Knowing they were both already in the doghouse, so to speak, made further arguments out of the question. Mac continually tried to tell himself that he was no longer worried about Matty breaking up their team, but that was bullshit, and he knew it. Jack just knew she could be vindictive when crossed and already thought they got more than their share of the crappiest most dangerous assignments that came across her desk anyway.

So, they ran back down the hall and did what they were told. Even though both operatives knew it was the kind of risky move that almost always bit someone in the ass. And by someone, they meant the people in the field ordered to try to pull off crap like this.

When a radio crackled right outside the door to the lab, Mac felt the familiar thudding of his heart that said despite years of more action than any one man should probably see and live to tell about, his fight or flight mechanisms were still functioning as well as any healthy twenty-something might expect. Well, maybe not as well. Something must be broken for him to keep willingly getting himself in these situations, he thought somewhat wryly, but didn't share with Jack.

Once they were crouched down behind the rolling rack of lab equipment, both Mac and Jack were able to collect their thoughts more easily. Once Mac watched the mercs go out the door with the VX, this started to feel like an even worse idea than before they'd executed it.

Mac was unable to keep the smirk out of his voice when he sarcastically said, "Okay, Matty, Chandra's guys have the super deadly nerve gas, so I guess everything's going according to plan."

He didn't miss the approving look Jack gave him for his back talk and he half-smiled in response. He also appreciated Jack mentioning just how easy it would be to take those guys out and get the nerve gas back. Phoenix had an excellent interrogation department. In fact, neither Matty or Cage ever shut up about how great she was supposed to be at that job and she was a couple hundred yards away in their car. Just about as far away as those guys probably were by now.

Matty through another monkey wrench into the plan by ordering Cage to pursue the mercs on her own and them to obtain … alternative transportation. Mac huffed an irritated, if almost affectionate, laugh when Jack got his cowboy look over the idea of appropriating a car. That was the last time Mac watched _Gone in 60 Seconds_ with him on a day off.

Mac and Jack shared another apprehensive look when Matty ordered them off comms. This just kept getting worse and worse. Mac didn't want to start to draw parallels to Cairo in his mind, but his vivid imagination was already doing it for him. Riley made them feel slightly better when she offered a solution that meant they didn't have to go dark completely. "We can use standard phones and I can track your cell signals."

Jack's voice was still at its most skeptical when he said, "I really hope this works, Boss." He added the boss to remind her subtly that if this mission went south she was the one who'd made an off the cuff decision this time. And he'd told her once exactly how he'd respond if Mac or Riley ever got really hurt out here, say nothing about if she was the one to get either of them hurt.

0-0-0

By the time they'd gotten outside, Mac had devised a way for them to get into a decent car. They wanted one with some juice to catch up to Cage and the bad guys, so when a weaselly looking suit got out of a sweet looking silver Dodge, Jack grinned like a kid at Christmas. Mac just shook his head with a grin and said, "Go get 'im, Big Guy."

As tense as he was, Mac was glad he and Jack were on the phone so he could hear the entire exchange between Jack and the swaggering young man who'd exited the car they were about to liberate from his possession. He needed the chuckle he got out of Jack saying, "Gramps is a little strong, but you have a nice day anyway, okay?"

Mac's smile broadened when Jack added how much he wanted to steal the car less stealthily and, "Send this little punk to the dentist right now."

As if Jack didn't like the idea of being a grandfather, regardless of what having to admit it to his various lady friends might do to his ego. Mac sometimes thought half the reason Jack got so parental with Riley, and more often than not with him, was because Jack liked the idea of family like he grew up with. He just answered his partner lightly, feeling like things were finally swinging their way again. "Sorry to disappoint you, but my little doodad worked just fine. The car is unlocked and idling ... So no "punks" are going to the dentist today."

Jack looked at Mac's relaxed grin and smirked back. "The day is still young."

Mac just laughed.

As soon as the car's owner was in the building and out of sight, they climbed in the car and sped off.


	3. Chapter 3

As soon as he could, Mac got Riley on the phone, and tried to get a sense of Cage's location so they could pick a smart route to catch up. In classic Riley style, she did one better than just telling them where to go. In less than three minutes, she had the real-time tracking imagery from her laptop mirrored to Mac's smartphone.

It hadn't taken them all that long to get out of the building and get a car, but the mercs, and as a result Cage were five miles ahead of them. Fortunately, he and Jack were confident in their ability to catch up. If there was one thing Jack loved, it was driving somebody else's car way too fast.

Mac had been trying to resist the urge to ask Jack what had been going on with him, but like it so often did, time on the road encouraged honest conversation. Also, Mac didn't like feeling distant from his partner, and he was still feeling badly for doing exactly what he'd promised he wouldn't and going after another lead about his dad.

Finally, he just sighed and said, "So I overheard Riley. Is her dad back in the picture?" He was at least a little pleased that he only sounded curious and concerned, rather than a little jealous.

Surprising him, Jack answered. "That's up to her. She asked me to stay out of it."

Then Mac saw the way one corner of Jack's mouth twitched up. "How long did that last before you were at his front doorstep accosting him?"

He knew that regardless of anything Jack said about wanting them both to have whatever they needed from their respective relationships with their estranged fathers, what Jack really wanted to do was bust them both in the mouth. And Elwood Davis had just waltzed into LA offering up his face from some good old-fashioned Dalton-style punching.

Jack grinned. Mac really did know him better than anyone. "About thirty minutes." Mac laughed, partially because that's about what he expected, and at least a little at himself because he'd never understand how Jack could love quite so completely and irrationally. Sometimes it drove him crazy. And other times he wished he knew what it was like to be that open.

"It would have been fifteen, but there was a car wreck on Sunset," Jack added.

"Well, you are nothing if not consistent." Mac wondered just exactly how Jack would respond if his own dad ever came back to town. He found that thinking about it made his voice a little tighter than he liked when he asked, "How'd that go?"

He was surprised to learn that Jack hadn't, well, jacked up Elwood again. He seemed to understand that while he'd needed to assure himself that her father wasn't there to hurt her, Riley wouldn't appreciate his interference. However, since Jack had made Mac swear to stop keeping secrets, the younger man had to ask, "What about your whole 'I hate secrets' thing?"

Jack grinned and answered very honestly. "I do hate secrets. When I'm not in 'em."

Mac chuckled. Then he asked with a seriousness that belied how much his own situation was on his mind if Jack thought Riley's dad had changed. Jack caught the deepening lines of his partner's face and intentionally mangled the 'change their spots' idiom, garnering the expected eyeroll and distraction from Mac, who couldn't resist correcting him.

Jack didn't see the level of distraction he'd been hoping for, so he tried again. "I know. I'm just gettin' you riled up. It relaxes me."

Mac couldn't help but laugh. Then after a minute, he punched Jack on the arm, not hard because he was driving, but not lightly either, because he knew exactly what his partner was up to.

"Hey!" Jack groused, pretending to be upset. "Knock it off! No punching the driver."

Mac smirked. "What if that relaxes me?"

"It ain't too late for some punk to go to the dentist."

Mac just laughed and shook his head. Honestly, all of this kind of relaxed him. And they seemed to be gaining on Cage and the mercs at a good pace. Until Riley and Matty got back in touch to tell them Cage's phone was not just off, but lost to Riley's tracking program.

In minutes they found their car, abandoned, with broken glass everywhere, full of bullet holes. Jack called Matty just as Mac found her phone. Mac felt his jaw tighten involuntarily. He knew something like this was going to happen. And Jack had known too. But Matty hadn't listened. Mac couldn't help saying what was on his mind, purposely being loud enough for Matty to pick it up over Jack's phone, "So … now the mercs have Cage and the nerve gas and we have no idea where they are."

Matty snapped, "That's enough, Blondie."

Riley was already trying to figure out how to get them some actionable intel. Within minutes, Matty was able to supply her irritated and impatient agents with the information they needed. "Guys, they're heading north. Go get Cage."

0-0-0

Mac and Jack had been back on the road for about ten minutes, going about as fast as they could push the car. Both of them were thinking about what kind of situation their teammate was in right now. Scanning the traffic in front of them Jack growled and got Matty back on the phone. "We are northbound. No sign of Cage yet." He was hoping maybe Riles had gotten some updated intel, but none was forthcoming.

Mac was trying to just focus on what was in front of them, but he knew his face fell visibly when he got a text from Jill saying she was having trouble with the film he'd recovered. Of course Jack noticed. "What is it?"

Mac's kneejerk response was to say, "Nothing," but he knew his tone said 'nothing' meant 'something important I feel bad about'.

Jack's sharp, "C'mon man, what is it?" surprised him into honestly.

"It's Jill. She's having trouble processing the film I found at my dad's cabin." As soon as it was out of his mouth, he shifted uncomfortably. _Shit._ He knew he should have just told Jack earlier. He tried to backpedal into silence when Jack questioned him further.

Jack wasn't buying it. "C'mon man. I thought we agreed there'd be no Lone-Rangering while we searched for your dad." Mac's self-justifying and, even he had to admit, almost irrational response, didn't dissuade Jack in the slightest. Jack pushed just a little more, telling Mac once again that all he wanted from him was for him to ask for help when he needed it. That applied to his search for his dad, and every other aspect of his life that he tended to try to take on even when he knew it might be too much for him.

Mac didn't even realize what he was about to say when he admitted that he would have asked for help, but he'd considered Jack unavailable due to other commitments. "I would have, but you were too busy helicopter parenting Riley." He realized that it sounded more petulant than the dismissive tone he'd been trying for. "Besides," he added quickly, "I didn't think I was gonna find anything useful."

Now that Jack knew what he'd been up to, he found he really kind of wanted to hear what his partner thought about it. "Roles of 8mm film do not hide themselves, do they?"

Mac hadn't really thought about that lockbox being the reason for the fire at the cabin, but when Jack pointed out the possibility, he found himself almost sure that was true. Even as Jack continued to talk, trying to refocus both of them on the mission at hand, and reassure Mac that they would get to the bottom of this strange mystery, Mac felt himself retreating into his thoughts, turning over the problem, testing its weight. Jack glanced at him frequently for a few miles, worried about his partner, both because he was distracted from the mission, and because of the reasons for it.

A call from Riley and Matty refocused both of them quickly a few minutes later. They exchanged relieved glances that they were still on the right track. Their relief was short lived when they very nearly ran over Samantha Cage, bleeding in the middle of the road in front of them.

When she said she got herself back with a grin, Jack was immediately impressed. Mac felt a look of disbelief (or was that mistrust – he couldn't tell) crease his face. When he realized she'd managed it by convincing the mercs that they still had the real gas, his nearly frowning expression dissolved into one of pure admiration. That was brilliant. It reminded him of a move Jack might pull.

When Matty authorized them to go ahead, and gave Mac the task of manufacturing the means to pull it off, the three teammates exchanged grins. They all had something within their skillset to bring to the table here, and it made them confident for the first time that they could really pull off Matty's crazy improvised orders.


	4. Chapter 4

They headed back to Carson's lab, knowing that what Mac needed to pull off a convincing cannister would be there. Mac didn't even pause by the door to the lab before heading in and getting started. He knew right where to go to get what he needed. Most labs were arranged very similarly and the small variations in this one didn't even slow him down.

Cage thought that, despite the fact that he clearly wasn't happy with Matty, the plan, or how things were shaking out, he looked like a kid who'd been given a particularly intriguing toy when he beamed, "Homemade tear gas!"

He missed the slight sarcasm in her, "Ah, perfect."

He just replied with another grin as he got to work, "Yeah. Should work great."

She glanced at Jack who just gave her a crooked smile and shrugged his shoulders, heading off to make a phone call to follow up on something he'd set in motion right before they almost ran her over. Jack had learned a long time ago that this was Mac's element and he did better, was happier, when he was just allowed to do his Mac thing and … MacGyver it. Cage had no earthly idea what he was doing until he started wiring up a remote charge on the cannister.

"What're you doing Mac?" Cage asked, hoping she was catching on to what he was up to.

"So, when you get the real VX, signal me, and I'll trigger the tear gas. And then Jack and I will swoop in with the cavalry."

Cage was constantly impressed by these two, even with everything she'd been told about them. She smiled at his confidence that this was all handled. "Oh, there's gonna be cavalry?"

Mac grinned with a little shrug. "Yes, there is." He paused. "Well, if Jack can convince the local SWAT team to give us a hand, then yes."

Cage's smile at his confidence faltered. Mac saw the change in her expression, picked up on the fact that she was almost holding her breath for a minute. She was the agent on the spot here. One false move and she was going to wind up either shot or exposed to a nerve gas she was enough afraid of to have shared a personal story about it with the team.

Mac gave her a sympathetic look. "Um, all jokes aside … This is going to work." He nodded his head to reinforce his reassurance. She still looked like her brain was telling her that as far away as she could get from this plan was the direction to run in. Then he said the thing that it always helped him to hear from Jack. "I've got your back."

And she really believed that was true.

0-0-0

Jack was getting edgy. The closer they got to actually trying to pull this off, the chattier he got. Unfortunately for Mac it was one of those chatty times where he man just kept repeating himself. It reminded Mac of Riley's first solo mission and Jack's repeated, increasingly adamant, "I don't like this, man," monologue. It was making Mac short tempered.

"She's literally standing on the coordinates the mercs sent," he ground out, trying not to be snappish, trying just to focus, but he was edgy too. On Mac edgy was even quieter than normal. He was also upset because when it came down to it, Matty authorized them to just bust these mercs if the exchange went south because letting the VX out of the country was just too dangerous, according to Oversight. He was on the verge of saying "I told you so," but good sense stopped him. Seconds later, Jack tapped him on the shoulder to cue him into the approaching van and they followed quickly behind it as soon as it pulled away with Cage.

It was after dawn when the van cross the bridge by the New York County Water Treatment Plant. It was nerve wracking to have a teammate in peril like this without even the minimal assurance the comms offered. Since Cage had already managed to snow these guys once, the agents tried to console themselves with the half-hearted thought that she was probably fine.

The guys were grateful that when the mercs started marching Cage inside for the exchange, Riley got ahold of them and told then she had Cage's phone mic up and running so they could have ears inside. She shared it to their phones, too. Then the local SWAT team arrived, giving all of them further confidence they could take these guys down.

Jack was ready to head in guns a blazin' from the get go, but Mac slowed him down. "Nobody moves until we get confirmation from Cage that she's got the real gas."

When the mercs' plan became clear, Mac was furious; with the terrorists for what they had planned, and at himself for not seeing it coming miles away in the distance. "It's water soluble."

Jack's eyes widened for a second, but he pieced it together almost instantly. "So, they're gonna deploy that nerve gas, right here right now?"

Mac nodded, already trying to revise the plan to compensate. Jack started moving the SWAT guys around to try to give them the best possible advantage in a lousy situation. "Hey, be ready boys. We're about to jump."

Despite a lack of firepower, Mac got himself ready for this, too, listening intently for the code work. The second he heard 'Albatross' he started to move, knowing Jack and their stand in tactical unit would follow. As they moved out, Mac triggered the charge on the fake cannister, know tear gas would already be pouring out of the fake cannister, at least temporarily incapacitating the mercs.

In the seconds that ticked past between when they deployed the tear gas and when they got inside, Cage had already started to fight. Jack joined with his gun and his fists. Mac just squinted through the cloud of lingering gas until his eyes rested on the cannister.

He took off at a sprint to scoop the gas up off the floor, but one of the mercs nearly beat him to it. He knocked his opponent down with a solid punch and then kicked him down the stairs to buy himself a minute or two to run with the gas.

He heard the ' _tink_ ' of the cannister being breached by a bullet and for a split second he froze with the closes thing to panic he had felt since the first time he'd diffused a live bomb. Even chained to a chair in Murdoc's Basement of Death hadn't made him quite that afraid. But he knew he didn't – and certainly the rest of his team and everyone in New York didn't) have the luxury of time. He looked around frantically for a solution to the problem of the leaking cannister.

Jack saw the look on the kid's face from across the room. So did Cage. The way they both were looking at him, he knew he had one choice to save, not just New York's water supply and the millions of people it delivered to, but his partner and teammate. When they started to run toward him, hoping to help, Mac sprinted for the nearest door, skidded inside and locked the door.

Jack was banging on the glass mere seconds later. "Mac! What the hell are you doin'?"

"It's leaking!" he barked over what felt like already shortening breath. _That's psychosomatic_ , he insisted to himself.

"Well, then get outta there!"

Jack didn't miss the fear in his friend's eyes when he responded.

"It's too late! I'm already exposed."


	5. Chapter 5

Jack didn't know what the hell the kid was thinking, but … No, wait; he knew exactly what the kid was thinking. Nothing whatsoever about himself. As usual. Just like the crap with going hunting for his dad on his own again. Mac was just thinking he could handle things and spare anyone else getting hurt. Shit, Mac was often willing to risk himself to spare other people petty inconveniences.

Jack knew his own expression was still one of raw terror when he saw Mac's slip out of fearful and into 'problem solving' mode. So, Mac would be even less inclined to take personal consequences into account. Jack's immediate impulse was his usual default; do whatever is necessary to save Mac. In this case it just happened to be from himself and his recklessly brave, thoughtlessly impulsive, planless decisions.

Cage stopped him. First her reasons sounded so rational, so detached from what was about to happen to Mac that he kind of wanted to knock out a couple of her teeth. His father had always taught him you didn't hit girls. But, hey, she was an equal, and a feminist, so she'd probably agree she had it comin', Jack thought, if only for a brief moment.

Then she went and said, almost breathlessly, "He'll think of something." She left off 'he always does', but it was heavily implied. It drew Jack's attention back to Mac with the intention of seeing if there was anything he could do to help.

Unfortunately, it had him turning to look as Mac sunk the sharp end of a pair of scissors into his thigh. Mac wasn't a guy who was overly dramatic about pain. In fact, Mac was a guy who'd keep quiet even if his pain was fairly severe, just to be left alone. But now, Mac screamed. There was no other word for it.

Jack wondered for a minute if Mac was delirious or something. VX wasn't supposed to do that. Not right away anyway. "Now what'er you doin'?" he shouted.

Mac stayed there on his knees, panting for a minute, although it was clear he'd heard Jack. He just needed a minute to get on top of the pain he'd just caused himself before he could answer. Cage could see the rising panic in Jack's face, so she made a guess and answered for him, hoping to calm Jack down a little, and get Mac the minute he needed to pull himself together. "He's buying himself time."

Jack knew as well as the next guy (well, the next guy who'd been trained in chemical weapons exposure response, anyway) that adrenaline, or it's synthetic equivalent, would slow the effects of nerve gas in the human body. His shout had been more to get Mac to slow down and think a little about himself before he acted.

Jack's horrified expression wasn't about confusion. It was about the pain on his partner's face, not to mention the fact that their original vehicle had emergency kits in it for this very situation. And Jack had forgotten to grab them when they'd found it empty of Cage. To be fair, neither he nor Mac had spared the kits a second thought. Until they'd been in the lab making the fake cannister.

Then Mac had said, offhandedly, "We should've grabbed the gear out of the car, man." The wrinkle in his brow belied the casual tone of his words. The kid had worried things would go sideways even then. Actually, the fact that he'd argued with Matty about putting the cannister back at all said he'd been worried about the plan from the beginning.

Jack should have argued harder with Matty about not doing this her way, or at least about how they were told to execute it. But he hadn't, and here Mac was, already breathing too fast, and coughing, bleeding, trying to hide the pain and fear he was feeling behind action. And he could see the makings of an action he could take.

"I'm gonna make a vent hood." He didn't like the almost choked sound of his own voice, but there wasn't much he could do about it at the moment.

Mac struggled to his feet. The stab wound was great for adrenaline, sure, but it hurt like hell. And he already felt like he was coming down with the flu in the last mile of a marathon on a humid day. That wasn't great. He needed to focus on what he was doing and why he was doing it. The mission, not his own why, he thought to himself.

"Like the ones in every laboratory ever built." He didn't have the time or the breath to just stand there and keep talking. He started moving as fast as his injured leg and increasingly labored breathing would allow.

He scrambled around the room, trying to find everything he needed. He also worked on trying to keep Jack and Cage in the loop about what he was doing. For one thing, he wanted Jack to know he was working on a solution, that he believed he'd get out. For another, he didn't want Cage deciding he wasn't handling things well and trying to stop him. She liked his explanations about as much as Matty. And she was equally snarky with him when she didn't understand or agree with his methods.

Most of the moving parts were pretty easy to come up with, but he needed something to help him frame the seal. He reached for the fridge, thinking there were a few foodstuffs he could use, plastic wrap, or ideally aluminum foil.

Jackpot!

As he tore the foil into strips he could use, Mac thought briefly that he'd have to revise his earlier answer to which person living or dead he'd do lunch with. Schrodinger would be great, but … The guy who brought his sandwich to work wrapped in foil? That guy deserved someone to buy him a new lunch. Like an expensive five martini lunch that came with a lot of thank yous.

As soon as his improvised vent hood started clearing the gas, Mac sunk down onto the floor. If anyone had asked, he would have said it was to get low so he'd be clear of the gas sooner. In reality, his bad leg and weakening respiration forced him to sit.

When the room was clear he realized he was going to have to move. Or Jack and Cage would break the glass. Jack would make a huge deal of everything and … Okay, so he'd been exposed to VX gas and that was maybe kind of a big deal. But he was going to be fine. Probably.

Mac forced himself to his feet, and stumbled to the door. When he got it open, Jack and Cage caught him from either side, allowing him to slump and let them take his weight. In spite of his pain, not to mention feeling pretty sick and miserable, he almost smiled at Jack's deliriously hopeful comment, "Now, how the hell did you survive locking yourself in a room full of nerve gas?"

Maybe it wasn't so much hopeful as it was denial, Mac thought. Since he was pretty sure he might pass out, he figured he'd better remind Jack of the score. "Ahhh," was what came out with his first attempt, as he accidentally put more weight on his injured leg than he intended. Then he took another breath, which didn't actively burn the way it had when he'd been surrounded by the gas. "I didn't," he reminded Jack. "It takes eighteen hours to kill you, so I need to get to a hospital _now_."

"You got it, buddy," Jack said, his worry immediately doubling. Mac was a sensible guy, and Jack knew he'd always get medical attention when he was really hurt, even if he didn't love the idea. But, to just admit so readily that it was bad enough to need a put-the-pedal-to-the-medal trip to a hospital, meant Mac sensed a crisis, too.

Jack notified the SWAT team about what was going on and got someone working on rapid transport to the nearest hospital. The commander answered that they would get an ambulance asap and they had emergency kits in their transport. Jack said they were on their way outside and resumed helping drag Mac along toward the exit.

0-0-0

Passing back through the building as quickly as his injuries would allow, Mac stopped short by the employee break room, getting a thoughtful look. A twenty-four-hour operation had a lot of conveniences a nine to five location didn't necessarily offer. A bathroom with a shower was one of them. He pulled his arms off their shoulders.

"What are you doing, Mac?" Cage asked, thinking maybe he was giving up on walking and was ready to admit needing to be carried.

He took a breath and then coughed it out. "I should try to wash off anything that might be clinging to my clothes, my skin. Everything I'm wearing is … garbage."

Jack and Cage looked at each other, since they'd been carrying him. Jack was the one to ask, "Do you think we're exposed, too? I can make another call …"

Mac shook his head. "It wasn't liquid. You know how Containment people are though." He glanced at his father's watch, gave another little shake of his head and took a hesitant step toward the bathroom.

"Cage, could you see if there's anything lying around I could wear? And I need bleach … Back in the water treatment area there are containers labeled sodium hypochlorite. Can you go grab one and bring ..?" He started coughing again.

"I'm on it," she responded quickly, spinning on her heel and heading back the way they came.

Mac turned to Jack. "Would you find something to bag my stuff up in? They'll probably want it incinerated, but …" The coughing started again.

"You bet, Mac." Jack listed for the water after the door closed before he went into the next room in search of something to put Mac's stuff into.

When he got back less than two minutes later, Cage was back, pacing around the small break room. Mac's stuff was in a heap outside the door. Jack started putting it into a bag he'd salvaged out of a garbage can. He swallowed hard when he realized Mac's father's watch was in the pile of clothes. Cage didn't notice his expression, just started talking too quickly. "I found the bleach and passed it in to him. I found a custodial uniform, too. It's about ten sizes too big for him, but he said he'd much rather have that than …"

Jack put a steadying hand on her arm. "Cage. Deep breath." He eyes searched his. "It's been less than ten minutes. He's not gonna die like those kids you saw in Syria. We're headin' to get help right now."

He was amazed at how level he sounded. He wrapped on the bathroom door. "How we doin', bud?"

"Be … right … out …" Mac panted, and Jack couldn't tell if it was shortness of breath or pain causing it.

Another thirty seconds passed, which Jack counted in his head. If he'd gotten to thirty-one, he would have broken down the door, but Mac stumbled out wearing a dirty grey jumpsuit that was probably suited for someone four times his body weight and at least four inches taller, skin read from water and bleach.

"Okay?" Jack asked, not meaning was Mac okay, but was he okay for he and Cage to move him again.

Mac didn't answer, just nodded, sagging against the wall. As Jack and Cage flanked him again, he was gripped by what felt like a whole-body muscle spasm that would have dropped him to the ground if they hadn't had a hold of him.

After that, they more or less carried him outside, and Mac was in too much pain to protest. The local guys had a stretcher waiting, and, Jack was deliriously relived to see, an emergency nerve agent exposure kit that looked like the Mark I Kits he'd been trained on in the Army.

Jack and Cage lifted Mac onto the stretcher. As the man who'd brought the kit to them took out and uncapped the double autoinjector, Cage's phone went off. She glanced at Jack. "It's Matty."

"So go take it," Jack said dismissively, and he turned back toward Mac, preparing to make some sort of joke about spring loaded needles and how he was surprised Medical hadn't taken advantage of the tech to weaponize all their equipment just to make them miserable.

When he saw that Mac's eyes were closed, not with the screwed up expression of pain he'd been wearing less than a minute ago, but smoothly unconscious, Jack felt his heart start to gallop again. The young man smoothed out Mac's pant leg and hit his uninjured thigh with the shot. Mac twitched, and moaned quietly, but didn't open his eyes.

The young man tapped Jack on the shoulder. "Are you staying with him, sir."

Something in Jack's face must have advertised that that was exactly what was going to happen. "Yes."

"We're moving out then, sir," he replied. And they started moving Mac toward the nearest ambulance.

Cage jogged up to them. She called out to Jack as he was climbing in the back of the rig. "Matty wants me to transport the prisoners back to LA. Now."

"Alright. I'll keep you posted," he replied, not all that interested what happened to the prisoners. Or Cage for that matter, which he knew wasn't the way a teammate was supposed to think. But he was damned sure that's what a helicopter parent was supposed to think, so he was going to stick with that for the moment.

Mac moaned again, and Jack wasn't sure if it was just that the kid was in pain in general or because one of the paramedics had just stuck him to start an IV, but given the feelings that particular sensation was going to cause after the incident with Murdoc, he was almost glad his partner was down for the count. Then something occurred to him. "Hey, Cage!" he called as the doors were being closed.

"Yeah?"

"Mac's father's watch …" he trailed off, not even sure what he was asking.

She gave him a little nod, smiling slightly when she realized that, although Mac was unconscious, Jack had wrapped his hand around Mac's. "I'll do what I can, Jack. Take care of your boy."

Jack felt the corner of his mouth lift.

"Always, Samantha. What've I been tellin' you?"


	6. Chapter 6

The next time Mac remembered opening his eyes, he was in a small, dimly lit private hospital room. He was wearing a gown that was only about half tied on and he realized it was because his chest was covered with leads for a heart monitor, and a blood pressure cuff was wrapped around his upper arm. Just as he noticed it, there was a muted beeping noise and it automatically inflated, much too tightly.

It wasn't nearly as uncomfortable as the poking, sharp, stabbing feeling of the IV in the crook of his other arm. If one arm wasn't nearly paralyzed by the blood pressure cuff trying to amputate it, his first, half-conscious impulse would have been to rip it out, especially since his head had the same kind of drowsy, swimmy, drugged feeling as it had in that basement not so very many weeks ago.

 _Calm down_ , Mac, he thought to himself. _Not a basement, just a hospital room_. He took a couple of deep breaths, which, he was happy to note didn't trigger a coughing fit. And while those weren't his favorite places to be on his best day, all he'd been thinking about was getting to one when Jack and Cage had more or less dragged him out of the water treatment plant.

His eyes moved slowly, drowsily to the side, when he sensed that he wasn't alone. Jack was sitting close to his bed, in front of a big window that revealed it was night, or at least very dark, in one of the ubiquitous, uncomfortable, supposedly 'overnight' chairs that rooms like these often had for family members, texting with someone, a frown deepening across his forehead. Mac felt his eyes starting to droop again already, but he wanted some answers before he let that happen.

"Hey, Jack," he said, his voice more hoarse than he expected it to be.

Jack immediately put his phone down and leaned toward his partner. "Hey, bud! I didn't think I'd be hearin' from you tonight. You were having all kinds of muscle spasms and they doped you up pretty good."

"Mmmm," Mac said, not really sure if he was just acknowledging what Jack said about him being heavily medicated or agreeing that he knew he'd had muscle spasms because he sort of hurt all over, almost as much as his thigh hurt where he'd stabbed himself. "Benzodiazepines. They're anti-convulsants. Standard protocol for …" He felt a muscle in his arm bunch up as the blood pressure cuff released. "Ow, hell," he mumbled.

Jack reached for the call button on Mac's bed. "Here. Lemme get somebody. If you woke up I was supposed to call …"

Mac put his hand over the little call device, swearing to himself when the wire for the pulse oximeter he was wearing got tangled up with it. "In … um … minute …"

Jack backed off, smiling faintly. "What is it, bud?"

Mac blinked a couple of times trying to clear his head. "Still in New York?"

Jack nodded. "Not too far from where we were, kiddo."

Mac waved vaguely at all the softly beeping equipment around him, flinching a little when he accidently did so with the arm hooked up to the IV. Bending it was uncomfortable as hell. "All this … Am I …"

Mac squeezed his eyes shut for a minute. There had been about twenty seconds, back when he first locked himself away with the leaking canister, that he couldn't see a way out, that he'd been certain he was going to die.

And he knew high level exposure to VX was almost always fatal. Maybe he was just here … waiting for the end. Maybe that explained Jack's expression when he'd been texting. Jack read most of that in the scrunched-up lines of the young man's face.

He put his hand on Mac's arm. "You worked fast, kid. You're all good. Minimal exposure." Mac's shoulders relaxed fractionally, so Jack went on, explaining further. "Those machines are a precaution, just observation, really. Twenty-four hours of bein' wired up like a car radio. The doc wants a real close eye kept on you for a little while. Then maybe they'll unhook all that nonsense and taper off the drugs."

Mac opened his eyes, at least mostly, and Jack could see the relief there.

"Home?" he asked, not too hopefully, but Jack could see the 'it never hurts to try' expression trying to fight its way through the meds and onto Mac's face.

Jack chuckled, pleased that even mostly asleep, his partner was already enough himself for his usual tricks. Kid was probably already deciding exactly how soon he'd be able to get away with going for a run. "Not for a couple of days, bud," he said, with a combination of sympathy and warning.

A line formed across Mac's forehead and his eyes tried to close. Sheer stubbornness peeled them open again. "Phoenix?"

Jack actually laughed, a much more unguarded sound than before. "Are you actually lobbying to get sent to Phoenix Medical right now, kid?"

Mac shrugged, or Jack thought he did. The movement was very small. "Least 's close to home."

Jack took Mac's hand off the call button and wrapped it in his own. "I'll talk to Matty, bud. Soon as the doc says it's safe to move you, I'll get you back in the right area code."

Mac smiled a little. "Thanks, man."

Jack glanced up at the doorway and then at his phone when it buzzed. Jack frowned. Mac noticed.

"S'matter?" he asked, eyes suddenly, inexorably heavy.

"Ah, nothin' Mac. Just Ri's askin' for some advice and I'm tryin' my best not to let my own issues screw up what I tell her."

Mac smiled again, but wasn't able to pry his eyes back open this time. "… s'askin' you to hel'copter parent?"

Mac heard Jack chuckle, and felt another gentle squeeze of his hand. "Maybe a little." Jack paused. "And when you get to feelin' better, you aren't gonna have to ask for it. You and I are gonna have a long talk about this crazy-assed shit you keep pullin'."

"No choice, Jack. You … know … Know that."

"We'll see," Jack said, looking up and giving a nod to the nurse that he'd surreptitiously called by pushing the button when he took Mac's hand a few minutes ago as she slipped back out the door.

She'd given the kid some more medication simply by being sneaky as hell. Jack thought Sully would be proud. Of course, he also thought Mac would ban him from his house for at least a month if he ever expressed admiration for such a thing.

Jack shifted in his chair, causing it to scrape on the floor, more noisily than he intended.

Mac's eyes snapped open, and for a few second he looked wide awake, despite the toll his injury and the nerve gas had taken on him, despite a bloodstream full of drugs to deal with both. "Leaving?" he asked, clearly too medicated to even care how vulnerable the not quite articulate question sounded.

Jack squeezed his hand again, not acknowledging the sting in his eyes at that moment. "No way, bud. I'm right here, until you tell me to go."

The blood pressure cuff started pumping up around Mac's arm again and even as the drugs pulled him under, his brow creased in discomfort, if not outright pain. Jack would speak to someone about that as soon as Mac was genuinely asleep.

As the cuff released, Mac's face smoothed, and his eyes fluttered a little. "Thanks, Jack," he murmured, finally giving in more completely to the latest dose of sedatives. Goddamn, that kid was stubborn.

Even though Jack was pretty sure Mac was beyond hearing him when he'd finally cleared the lump from his throat, he answered. "I gotcha, kid. Always."


	7. Chapter 7

Jack expected Mac to be a lot surlier when he woke the next day, but as the medical staff tapered off the medication so their patient could be as fully conscious as they, and he, wanted him to be, he had too many symptoms he knew were directly tied to his experience to be particularly argumentative.

He was also running a fever, which the doctor assured him didn't necessarily mean infection, but which she was treating as one nonetheless, given the fact that he'd stabbed himself in the leg in the middle of a water treatment plant. Mac had accepted her treatment plan with remarkable good will, Jack thought. Until the doc left the room and Mac turned to him with one eyebrow arched. "Did you call Matty yet?"

"Still in a tear to get back on the left coast, huh, bud?"

Mac shrugged with a small smile, looking up at Jack through disheveled bangs. He poked at the colorless oatmeal on the tray table in front of him with his spoon, pretending his lack of desire to eat it had anything to do with the quality of the meal. "Food's better at Phoenix."

Jack grinned and shook his head. Jack had a feeling that as soon as they were back in LA, the line would become, 'The bed's more comfortable at home.'

But to be honest, Jack was anxious to get back, too, and not just because he knew Mac would be happier. Riley had been texting him off and on about her dad. She'd almost agreed to go have dinner with him. Then she'd canceled because of everything that happened, not about to go out for a night on the town when one of her closest friends was in the hospital, and the reason and his condition were so worrisome. But she felt bad about and was thinking of reaching out to reschedule. He wasn't about to just abandon Mac, but he felt like he could at least exert a sensible influence if he could look her in the eye.

Jack sent a text to Matty, just verifying that the plan they'd discussed while Mac was still asleep was coming together. When he looked back up at Mac, his partner was sitting up in bed, massaging a Charlie horse in his calf, teeth gritted in an effort to not make any noise about it, because frankly, he wanted out of here and his condition was going to dictate whether or not that happened.

Jack could almost hear what he was thinking, and addressed that first. "I know you don't want to just sleep the day away and I know you don't want to stay here …" Mac semi-glared at him, knowing where Jack was going with this. "But you're still having pretty bad muscle cramps, and your heartrate is elevated. They could give you more of that stuff that fixes both you know."

Mac rolled his eyes. "They're still giving me that stuff, just not enough to keep an elephant unconscious anymore."

Jack nodded, then decided to just say what was on his mind. "They could give you something for the headache and the nausea, too, man. You don't have a case of the flu, kid. You got exposed to one of the deadliest nerve gases around."

"I know, Jack." Mac forced a little chuckle. "I was there, remember? Besides, all I'm asking for is a change of venue. I'd rather be back in LA."

Jack looked at him very seriously. "I gotta be honest here, bud, I'm worried once I get you back in LA, you're gonna rush things and try to go home."

Mac's eyes rolled a little again, and then he winced at the pain in his head. The ache had been so constant this morning, he'd almost forgotten about it. "I'm not gonna do that, Jack."

"You _always_ do that, Mac," Jack asserted.

This time Mac refrained from rolling his eyes, not because he didn't feel like doing it, but because this time he remembered it would hurt his head. "Jack …"

"And you might not remember it, but I told you last night we were gonna talk about you making dangerous decisions because for some damned reason or another you haven't figured out that you are at least as important as every other person, and to some of us you're a whole goddamned lot more important!"

Mac sighed, then he met Jack's eyes. "It's not that at all, Jack …" Jack's brows drew together. "I just … I solve problems. Hell, I do it for fun, all alone in my house – codes, puzzles, restoring old machinery … you know how I am."

This time Jack nodded. "I guess I do a bit."

"I just don't think about problems the same way most people do. I see the issue and I solve it. It's not about not thinking I'm important … It's about solving the problem … I … Does that make sense or are they still doping me more than they said they would?"

Jack gave a half smile. "I get what you're sayin', I think. But what about takin' off for your dad's cabin after you promised …"

Mac interrupted. "You weren't around!" Jack practically flinched, and Mac backpedaled. "Which is totally fine. You are allowed to have a life outside of being my helicopter parenting bodyguard with serious overprotectiveness issues. I just wanted to go, so I went."

"But then you didn't tell me about it, or that you'd found something," Jack frowned.

Mac shook his head. His headache was getting a little bit worse, but the doc had said he could expect a couple of weeks' worth of not feeling the best and that headaches were part of that, so he told himself it was the VX and not his irritation with having to defend his actions to Jack. He told the quiet voice in his head that said it was probably a little from Column A and a little from Column B to kindly shut the hell up.

"I did though. I told you when it came up again. I just didn't think about it before that." Jack didn't look like he believed him. "Honestly, Jack."

Spy-level acting skills aside, Mac's eyes usually gave him away to Jack, and he seemed sincere. "Okay. But promise me you're going to take care of yourself. Maybe take a breath and think when you see a problem before you just go charging on in at it."

Mac tipped a half smile at his partner. "I promise to try, Jack."

Jack had to smile back. "Well … if that's as good as I'm gonna get, I'll just hafta take it and be grateful." Mac laughed and then he groaned, closing his eyes for a minute. "You okay, kid?"

"Awesome," Mac answered flatly, forcing his eyes open again. "It's gonna be a fun couple of weeks. On the upside, if I can manage to eat Bozer's usual five-star Thanksgiving spread, I have a perfectly good excuse to not go run it off after."

Mac was hoping to lighten Jack up a little bit and get him moving on getting them home. Jack wasn't going to change Mac's mind, and honestly any of the medical staff at Phoenix was probably better trained that the doctor here to deal with Mac's specific issues, although this doc had done a bunch of work on responding to terror threats post-911.

He half laughed to himself when he thought that Mac had pretty much already wrapped his doc and the nurses he'd met here around his pinky, but there was no snowing Sully or her staff just because you had pretty blue eyes and a dimply smile. And Matty had pulled one of their ex-military docs from a field mission to oversee Mac's case back home. He showed Mac his best sympathetic smile. "Alright, brother, you got me. Matty's sending the jet to bring you home. Should be at the airport in about a half hour."

Mac beamed, not even cognizant of his eyes narrowing with another muscle spasm that he barely noticed. "That's great! Any chance you could run out and get me some clothes? What with all of my belongings having gone up in smoke?"

A shadow passed over his face then, and Jack wanted to be able to tell him that Cage had been able to save his father's watch, but Samantha had been busy, and had just texted him that she'd left it off in the lab, and someone was checking to see if it was contaminated. If it wasn't or if they could decontaminate it, Mac would get it back. Otherwise, into the incinerator it would go.

"I'd love to help you, bud, but you don't even get to get out of bed." Mac's mouth dropped open a little. "It's a med flight. And Phoenix's own Nurse Scary and a handpicked assistant are coming along to take care of you in transit."

Mac closed his eyes for a second. Maybe Jack was onto something with trying to get him to reconsider impulsive decisions. "So, Sully and one of her minions get to torment me across the whole country?"

"At least the jet only takes about two and a half hours, man."

Mac had to concede that at least that was something.

0-0-0

About twenty minutes into the flight, Mac managed to convince his partner that he'd live if Jack went to have a nap on one of the couches. He had the undivided attention of very competent medical professionals, and he felt bad that Jack had slept in the chair next to his bed. It didn't even recline like it was supposed to.

More to keep Mac from fussing over him than because he wanted to, Jack went and stretched out on a couch. Against his finer impulses, Jack was out cold and snoring in less than five minutes. Absent his partner's distracting conversation, Mac fidgeted on the gurney that was hooked to one wall of the jet. Being so close to the wall made him edgy.

Suddenly, Sully was beside him. "Stop picking at that tape, Mac."

Mac glanced down. He'd been unconsciously tugging at the tape securing his IV. He cleared his throat. "Sorry."

"You really want to lose that, don't you?" It was a genuine question, he thought, not something she was saying because she was irritated with him.

He shrugged. "Usually."

She didn't say that this went way beyond usually, didn't mention the notes in his file because of the incident with Murdoc and the hours he'd spent at Medical afterward. She thought too much sympathy would be taken badly by him, would drag all that back up. So, instead, she gave him a hard look. "If I take that out for you, I want zero arguments when I hand you pills."

Never had he ever won Sully or any of her nurses over so easily to what he wanted. "Okay," he said, slightly pleased that he managed not to stammer in his surprise.

Her gaze hadn't wavered. "And know that if I need to I will start another one or poke you with all manner of needles should your condition dictate it. And I expect no argument about that either."

Mac's eyebrows climbed, but all he said was, "Yes, ma'am."

"Okay, then," she said with a nod.

He found somewhere else to look while she removed the IV and bandaged his arm. He thought she'd gone to sit back down after that was finished but she'd materialized beside him again with a small paper cup full of pills and a ginger ale. "What's all this?" he asked, raising an eyebrow.

She glared at him. "I thought we agreed there'd be no arguing?"

He held up his hands in surrender, then reached out and took the cup and the ginger ale. "I'm not arguing, I'm asking. I can't know what I'm swallowing?"

She smiled at him. "Fair. It's an antibiotic. Because there are orders for it, and your leg looks disgusting, by the way. It's also an anti-emetic, a mild pain reliever, and valium. Same stuff that's been in your IV, just the route you prefer. Satisfied?"

"Is the sedative still really necessary? I mean …"

"It's for the muscle spasms, Mac. Not just because it generally makes you easier for me and my staff to deal with. Although, that is a solid argument for you taking it from my perspective, I'm not gonna lie."

He hesitated. "They're not that bad anymore …"

"You've had five muscle cramps since I came over to take out your IV. And I know you think they aren't that big a deal, and if it was just cramping due to dehydration or injury, you'd be right. But the spasms caused by VX can affect all your muscles. _All_ of them."

She waited a beat.

"Like my heart," he said, understanding dawning. The doc at the hospital hadn't said anything about that, only that atropine could cause arrhythmia, but she thought he was out of the woods for that and had let him remove the leads for the monitor, taking a fair amount of chest hair with them.

"Agent MacGyver moves to the head of the class."

He smiled slightly. "You win," he said, and swallowed what felt like half the pharmacy with a long drink of the soda.

He made a face, and took several deep breaths. His stomach was not impressed, and he had to get pretty stern with it to get it to not return to sender the recent load of pills. He had no doubt Melody Sullivan, mean nurse extraordinaire, was already prepared with a laundry list of shots to take the place of the pills and he'd had enough being stabbed to last him a while. Finally, he was pretty sure they were going to stay where he put them.

After both he and Sully were sure he wasn't going to refund his meds, she insisted on getting updated vitals. Mac found it impossible to do anything other than recline against the raised back of the almost-bed and sink into his pillow. By the time she finished, he was having a hard time keeping his eyes open again.

He frowned at the nurse, an owlish, exhausted expression that didn't quite manage to convey annoyance. "How much of that stuff did you give me?"

"What our doctor ordered to keep you from being miserable on the trip home. All the changes in altitude and getting back to Phoenix in an ambulance are going to be zero fun, even for the uninjured here, Mac. Just get some rest."

He wanted to be grumpy with her for not warning him, but he supposed, promises or not he would have argued with her. And if he was honest, sleeping through the trip wasn't the worst idea he'd ever heard. But he couldn't resist mumbling, "That's the last time I agree to anything with you that's not in writing."

She laughed and patted him on the shoulder, heading back to her seat, knowing he'd be asleep before she moved the ten feet to get there.


	8. Chapter 8

It had been late morning when they left New York, and because of the speed of the Phoenix jet, they arrived before they had left, according to the clock anyway. Jack sat by Mac's bedside, a little concerned that he hadn't even woken up when they'd shifted him onto a real bed. The staff assured him it was due to the dose of medication he'd received in-flight, but that's didn't actually make him feel much better.

It was after lunch when Mac pried his eyes open again. He rubbed his forehead, trying to press away the ache in his head, and knowing that was a futile effort, but unable to help it anyway. Jack was on the phone, nearby, talking softly.

He heard his partner say, "I'm glad to hear it. Yes, ma'am; he's promised he'll stay put. If I need to I'll let him know you say it's an order. We know how careful he is about followin' those," Jack chuckled. He glanced at Mac's bed and saw him awake. "Gotta go, Matty; our boy is up."

Jack came over from where he'd been hovering by the edge of the curtain that functioned as something of a room in the main med bay at Phoenix and sat in the chair by Mac's bedside. He saw Mac frowning at the opening in the curtain when he realized where he was. The big open area with curtained off cubicles was reserved for their most concerning cases that needed monitoring by the medical staff almost constantly. Jack quickly started talking, hoping to assuage his concerns.

"Hey, bud. Good to see you awake again. Sully knocked you out cold," Jack grinned. They had this sort of informal competition to see which one of them could keep one step ahead of the medical staff better or for longer, and today Mac had definitely lost a point.

"Yeah," he said, running his hands over his face and through his hair. "She sure did. I don't remember landing, or coming here, or … anything. Like why I'm not in a room, for example," he said, raising his eyebrows at Jack in a question. What his face asked was simple. Is this worse than you guys were letting on?

Jack gave him a reassuring smile. "They just want to keep a really close eye on you for the next twelve hours or so."

"Because ..?"

Jack shrugged. "They know you don't want to stay any longer than you have to, and if you're doin' okay, the doc says you can probably go home tomorrow, like by afternoon at the latest. This close watching stuff is actually to try to get you out of here faster, kid."

"Okay." Mac grinned. "That's good then."

"Sure is, although I think you're gonna have a hard time getting the rest you're supposed to have since everybody wants to come see you."

Mac shrugged. "I wouldn't mind the company. Then maybe you could go get some sleep yourself. You and I both know you stayed up all night pretending you knew what any of the numbers on those monitors mean at the hospital in New York, old man."

"I'm not gonna just ditch you here, bud," Jack said stridently.

Mac chuckled and then regretted his laughter as his stomach muscles bunched up in a spasm like he'd been laughing at the world's funniest movie for hours. "Ah, damn it," he groaned. Then he looked at Jack again. "What're the odds, Sully or one of her minions isn't going to come marching in here with another one of those horse pills to knock me on my ass again any minute? You might as well go get some sleep, too."

Jack waved off Mac's concern. "I'm all good, Mac."

Mac didn't have a chance to rebut that particular claim with a reminder that Jack had had the living hell beat out of him not all that long ago, and hadn't slept great because of it since then either, and that, not to beat a dead horse, but he wasn't exactly a kid anymore, because Riley pushed aside the curtain and was wrapping him in a tight hug. "Mac! I'm so glad you're okay. You are, right? Okay, I mean?"

Mac put on his best 'everything is absolutely under control' smile. "I'm doing great, Ri. Thanks for all your help on this one."

Riley released him and stood up, shifting from one foot to another. Nerve gas. Jesus, that was scary. "I wish I'd been a little faster, a little better prepared. Then you wouldn't be in that bed and …"

Mac concealed a grimace as another muscle cramp ripped through his lower back, and managed to not reveal the wave of nausea that came with it.

"Ri," he began with a small smile as he looked up at her pensive expression. "If I hadn't liked living on the edge, I'd probably have stayed at MIT and I'd be working in a lab somewhere – I mean, hopefully NASA because if you're going to just be a lab rat at least you can help the people who like action boldly go, ya know?" She let a little giggle slip at that and her expression relaxed a bit. "But I'm good at the not so lab based stuff. Sometimes it ends like this. And I don't love it. But if I didn't accept it … not just accept it, but expect it even, I wouldn't be doing the job. Okay?"

Jack got up and stood next to her, almost hovering between the two of them, quite unable to decide which of them to be more worried about in the moment. Riley just nodded. "I get it. I do. I hacked the NSA the first time mostly just to prove I could. Because it was a rush. I think I can get around to understanding you guy and your stupid adrenaline junkie thing."

"Jeez," Mac grinned. "I don't think I've ever called your hacking stupid … Way to cut to the bone here, Ri."

She laughed again. Jack gave Mac an entirely approving nod. "Yeah, Riley," Jack laughed, piling on. "I feel unfairly judged right now."

"Oh, you be quiet," she swatted Jack's arm affectionately. "How do you feel though? Really?"

"I'm fine. Don't you start mother-hening me, too, Ri. Boze and Jack are bad enough."

Riley's phone chimed and she fished it out of the pocket of her jeans and frowned at it for a minute. She looked Jack for a second, and then texted something. "I gotta go make a phone call," she said apologetically.

"Matty?" Jack asked.

"Elwood," she answered with a little shake of her head. "I cancelled dinner last night because I didn't know how Mac was doing yet, and he wants to have lunch now. I can't do the lunch thing. I still have some reports to finish up and Matty's been in Interrogation all night and all morning. If I don't have what she asked for on her desk, I'll probably be debugging email programs in some shitty office downtown by tomorrow."

Mac looked between his partner and Riley. Jack was doing a hell of a job at keeping a lid on the surrogate dad thing right now. Mac was kind of proud of him. "So, reschedule dinner with him. That'll give you a while to get your head on straight for it."

"You think I should go?" Riley asked, sounding a little tentative.

Mac shrugged. "You have to do what feels right to you, but I'd give anything to be able to go have dinner with my father tonight." He threw Jack a mock glare when he saw the grin he was getting. "And it's not just because I'd like to get out of here, Jackass."

Jack laughed. "Sure it's not, bud."

Mac half smiled at his partner. Jack was back to teasing a little. That was a good sign. When he shifted his gaze to Riley, his expression was more serious. "Honestly, though … I'd love a chance to just sit down with him, hear what he has to say. Answer him, even if it was just to yell at him. You know?"

She thought about it for a minute. "Yeah," she said, her voice almost a whisper. "You're right. I should go. Even if I wind up telling him off, I always wanted to do that when I was a kid anyway."

Jack's arm went around her shoulders and he gave her a brief squeeze. "You call me if you need me. For anything. Up to and including you deciding Elwood has a punch face. Your hands are too nice to go scarring up your knuckles on 'im. Aright?"

She hugged him back. "I will, Jack." She let Jack go and bent to hug Mac again. "I better go call Elwood and then get my butt in gear on those reports." She raised an eyebrow at Mac. "You take it easy."

He chuckled in spite of himself. "I'm being given exactly no choice, so you can count on it."

After she left, Jack sat back down. He sat still for all of two minutes, talking about the injury list for the Cowboys, before he started fidgeting. Mac knew the answer, but asked anyway. "What's the matter, Jack?"

Jack shrugged. "Nothin'."

"Mmmhmm. Nothing's wrong with you. I feel awesome right now. Everything is great. So, since we're going for delusional, how about you go grab our hover car and we'll go get tacos on the moon for lunch."

"You really must be feelin' a little better. You aren't normally such a sarcastic little shit if you're really sick."

"Ah, so maybe some of what I said was true, like the feeling awesome. And we could go get tacos. Just up the street. I have an extra go bag in my locker, so there's clothes not two floors away."

Jack shook his head, knowing Mac wasn't serious, but unable to help teasing a little. "You promised you wouldn't do that."

"I promised to try. The two are wildly different things. There's no Venn diagram there. No necessarily anyway."

"Haha," Jack said, making it clear that joking about leaving right now was not all that funny, especially given how Mac paled just then and had to breathe through some pretty severe discomfort. "How bad is it?" Jack asked.

Mac opened his eyes after a second. "I've honestly been better," was as much as he'd admit to.

"You probably still need a higher dose of those meds," Jack said, sounding at his most finely tuned helicopter parent levels in weeks.

"I guess maybe that wouldn't be the worst idea, but …"

Mac didn't get to finish. Jack was on his feet and around the curtain before the sentence was half begun. He was back just as quickly standing by his bedside. "Somebody'll be in with some pills and maybe some food in a few minutes, bud." Mac made a face. "No on the lunch, huh?"

Mac closed his eyes, the idea of food more objectionable than the idea of more of his body betraying him by cramping up like he was on mile 21 of a marathon. "Yeah, no. Food is a non-starter right now."

Jack patted his arm. "I'm sorry, kid. This sucks."

Mac opened his eyes and looked up at Jack. "It'll pass, man. I'll be fine." His face scrunched up for a second, but he didn't say anything about it. "So, now that you've helicopter parented me a little, what else is bothering you?" He grinned at Jack's expression. "You thought you distracted me from my question, but you didn't. So there."

Jack just shook his head at his friend's tenacity. "Honestly?" Mac nodded. "I'm worried about Riley." He caught Mac's expression. "And not in my usual I'm worried about one of you guys kind of way." Mac smiled a little. "Elwood is bad news. He seems so genuine but …"

"He's a con man?" Mac offered.

"Yeah. And he's never come back into her life for a good reason before. And it's never ended well either."

"You want to investigate him, don't you? See if he's up to something?"

"I do … But she asked me not to get between them, wants to know I believe she can take care of herself …"

Mac got a sly look on his face. "If you just followed Elwood around a little, you could make sure he was on the up and up, and it wouldn't hurt Riley because it wouldn't be about her or her relationship with him. It would be about establishing him as an honest actor here in LA."

"You are one sneaky bastard," Jack said with admiration. "I wish I had the time to actually go out and …"

"Go!" Mac said with a shooing gesture. "You've got all kinds of time. I'm gonna be stuck here at least until tomorrow. And you are forbidden to just sit here and watch me sleep. That's creepy as hell, old man."

Jack gave Mac a look of pure affection and slight frustration. "You sure you'll be okay here on your own?"

"I don't know Jack," Mac said with obvious sarcasm. "Sleeping all by myself, without my teddy bear and everything? I may cry myself to sleep."

"Now you're just trying to get rid of me," Jack accused.

"Hell yes I am," Mac replied. "Riley needs someone looking out for her, Jack. She's not going to be able to be objective about her dad. If anybody knows it, it's me. Matty's got half of Phoenix on orders to look out for me right now. Go helicopter parent your other kid while I sleep some more of this crap off." Jack still looked hesitant. "You better go, or I swear I'll think of some way to get you on the bad side of the nursing staff."

"Low blow, kid."

"Did it work?"

Jack patted him on the shoulder. "I'm on it. You rest, alright?" Mac nodded, face wrinkling again in unacknowledged pain. "And if I'm gonna be gone for very long, I'll make sure somebody looks in on you, okay?"

Mac shrugged. "Sure. If whoever it is doesn't mind being bored. I'm ready to sleep for a week until every muscle in my body stops making me feel eighty."

Jack was leaving as Nurse Sullivan was entering with a tray full of food and a cup full of pills. He stopped for a second just outside the curtain, just to be sure Mac was really holding up his promise to stay here and get better before he ran off to get himself in another mess.

"You usually like the turkey sandwich better than anything else, so that's what I brought you for lunch."

"If I don't eat, are you gonna yell at me?"

"Not much," she answered. "So long as you take your meds, and maybe let me talk you into the crackers I brought in case that was how you felt."

Jack heard Mac's breath hiss through his teeth, less guarded about his pain now that his friends weren't in the room to feel badly about it. "Deal," he replied, sounding a little out of breath.

Jack heard some movement behind the curtain, and a few minutes passed. Then Sully said. "Okay. Good. You comfortable now? " Jack couldn't hear the answer. "If you need anything or you feel anything has changed … And I mean anything, MacGyver, you hit that call button and one of us will be in."

"Yes, ma'am. I will." Mac was already starting to sound very sleepy. There was a pause. "You hear that Jack. I promised Sully I'll behave, too." Jack was startled into a laugh. "Eavesdropping is a creepier helicopter habit than sleep watching." There was another pause as Jack thought about how to respond. "Don't make me bring back the whole 'Porkchop' thing, man."

"I'm goin', I'm goin'," Jack called as he headed out to track down Elwood.

He did hear the nurse ask, "Porkchop? What the hell is that all about?"

And he heard Mac's reply, "It's a pilot thing. And a nickname. Actually, I kind of like it."

Jack just shook his head. Mac's situation seemed like it would resolve itself smoothly, and the kid would be back to his usual shenanigans in no time. If only he could convince himself the same would be true of Riley.


	9. Chapter 9

The next time Mac found himself swimming back up toward wakefulness, he could tell it was still light out. In fact, the bright light streaming in the west facing windows of the med bay told him it was probably around sunset. The discomfort of even the red of his vision behind his closed eyelids reminded him that he had a rotten headache. He willed his face to relax, in hopes that that would somehow ease the pain pinching around his eyes.

He heard someone shift beside his bed. He swore if Jack was already back here, hovering over him and watching him sleep, he was going to chew him out. If he wasn't going to go make sure Riley's dad wasn't some shady character who was setting her up for more hurt she didn't deserve, then he could go home and get some sleep, or at least go crash on a couch here at Phoenix if he couldn't be sensible.

Mac opened his eyes and blinked in the light, pleasantly surprised to find that Jack had done what he said and gone out to take care of Riley and had clearly sent another team member to check up on him. He smiled at Cage, who he hoped had just sat down and hadn't been sitting there watching him sleep. Your best friend who also felt the need to helicopter parent you and who had seen you in the most dire of circumstances, had shared those dire circumstances more than once, was one thing. Someone you were still getting to know doing the same thing was another matter entirely. Instead of asking, he just said, "Hey," thinking he still sounded a little rough, but grateful that it wasn't worse.

"Hey," she replied. She was smiling at him, but her eyes were taking him in in a very evaluative kind of way. It made him a little uncomfortable, but he didn't say anything. He thought that was just part of her personality, like Jack's bad puns and dad jokes. Cage was always appraising the people around her. She seemed to sense his discomfort, because she defaulted to the strategy she'd observed him and Jack share. Teasing. "You're becoming a regular here."

He smirked. "I should ask if they have a loyalty card. I'm like two punches away from a free kidney."

He started to chuckle, but a muscle spasm in his thigh stopped him short. They were all pretty painful, but this one happened to be in his injured leg. It was bad enough to make him gasp and grab a hold of the bed railing. There wasn't even any massaging this one away. Man, this sucked.

He'd almost thought he was feeling better when he woke up. But it looked like he'd been right before when he'd thought it was going to be a rough few weeks. He was almost willing to consider not pestering anyone about going home tomorrow. Almost.

Cage leaned forward a little and asked if he was okay with genuine concern.

"Yeah," he said, dismissing the pain. He immediately slipped into his game face. The last thing he wanted was for her to overreact and go get some doctor or nurse to make a bigger deal of it than it was.

He tried again, "Yeah."

That sounded better.

"You know Matty and I flipped the mercs we captured at the plant. As we speak, Phoenix agents are rounding up Chandra's whole group, including the queen bee herself."

Mac was doing his best to focus on what Cage was saying, but he honestly still felt a little drowsy, not quite with it. He did process that Phoenix had accomplished the mission, original, and Matty's wild and crazy add on. He smiled, trying to blink the sleep out of his vision. "That's great."

Cage frowned just a little and her tone changed, sounding almost disapproving. "You know Mac, what you did back there, that was a hell of a gamble."

Oh, for the love of heaven, not her, too. He brushed it off. "Occupational hazard."

She looked like she wanted to say something more, and he could tell it was going to be irritatingly protective. He could not have half the team behaving that way. Whatever it was, he would find a way to nip that inclination in the bud as soon as possible. But her cell phone buzzed, saving both of them the conversation.

"I've gotta get that. I'll be right back." She seemed reluctant to walk away. She turned back toward him again. "I'm glad you're feeling okay."

Mac managed a smile for her. She was so obviously concerned for him, so pleased that the successful mission hadn't cost them anything more. He supposed he understood. Even a win didn't feel like a win when it cost someone, especially when it cost someone everything, as his "hell of a gamble" certainly could have.

His eyes were trying to close again. He sighed, turning to try to get more comfortable. He blinked again, thinking that maybe he was finally hungry. Then he caught sight of the table pulled next to his bed. He frowned, and groaned as he reached out for the small stack on it.

The watch was a pleasant surprise, but he was far more interested in the film box. He had to hold the note away from his face to read it. The words wanted to blur before his eyes. He wondered if that was a side effect of the gas, or the medication being used to treat its effects. Either way it was annoying as hell.

From Jill's pessimistic note, Mac wasn't expecting the film to be worth much. But he figured half an answer was better than none. He contemplated it for a moment. "Hmmm," he breathed, wondering exactly what he'd find, and just putting it back on his nightstand when he realized he would have to wait until they let him out of here to find out.

He decided the best way to get a look at that film would be to do exactly what he promised Jack he would do. He rolled over onto his uninjured side and let his eyes close again.


	10. Chapter 10

He was up again a few hours later. He lay there for a while in the not quite dark enough to sleep curtained excuse for a room, wondering just who the hell was on duty who thought it was okay to watch … whatever it was … at the volume at … He glanced at the clock. Only nine pm. He guessed he couldn't complain too much.

He heard his phone's muted text alert buzz and move it slightly on his bedside table. He stretched to get it and wound up curling on his side, breathing carefully through gritted teeth. He couldn't decide if it was a muscle spasm, the puncture wound in his thigh, or the effects of sleeping on one of Medical's poor excuses for a real bed that had sent the stabbing pain all the way to his toes. And frankly he didn't care. He was already fed up with feeling like garbage, and being some place where he wasn't allowed to get out of bed and do something to distract himself from it.

Finally, he eased himself onto his side just as his phone buzzed with another text. He was just picking it up when the call came in. He answered quietly. "Hey, Jack."

"Hey, bud. How you doin'? I tried texting you. I know nobody else hung around to keep you company, so I got a little worried."

"I'm alright," he said, shrugging without even realizing he was doing it, just like Jack was there to see the gesture. Not interested in being interrogated about the specifics of his condition this evening, he asked. "So, does Riley's dad seem like he's on the up and up or not so much?"

Jack was quiet for a long moment. That meant not so much. It also meant that Jack didn't really want to talk about it. "There's definitely more goin' on here than I'm particularly comfortable with, man. I don't like it."

Mac concealed his snicker at Jack's most frequent choice of phrasing around all things Riley that he couldn't somehow control and make better for her. He chose to respond with a problem solving approach. "I guess knowing what we know, that was bound to be the case … What're you doing about it?"

"I was thinkin' of stickin' to the bastard like white on rice, but … There may be other players … I'm not sure what I wanna do. I'm sittin' here thinkin about it."

"Creepy stalker in the parking lot is not a good look, Jack. She'll freak out if she catches you there."

"I know, I know …" Jack sighed.

"So, go stakeout the guy's motel. You know you love a good stakeout, Jack. Like vacation. With old man butt pillows."

"You're hilarious, kid."

"So you don't want to go check out his living arrangements more closely?"

"I meant about the butt pillows. I do kind of want to follow him a little more, but …"

"You are not coming back here to watch me sleep. Not happening, Jack."

Jack was quiet again. Mac could tell it was the Jack having an argument with himself kind of quiet. This was Jack feeling guilty about leaving him here to fend for himself, so to speak, but also not wanting to leave Riley at the mercy of whatever crap her dad brought to LA with him. Mac tried again.

"Seriously, man. It's hard enough to sleep here in the middle of the floor, pretending that curtain constitutes anything more than the most basic illusion of privacy. I wouldn't have been awake to take your call, but I'm pretty sure the nurse on the floor is watching Game of Thrones on her work tablet. I don't need you staring at me making your Porkchop face."

"Hey, I left like you said. You're not allowed to start back up the nickname crap again." Jack paused. "Angus."

"I don't hate my name. You can call me whatever you want," he said, not entirely convincing. Then he added, "And I said if you didn't go take care of your own stuff I was gonna bring it back. I'm just sticking to my word."

Jack chuckled. Mac getting a little … well, shit, he used some fancy word for the way he got when he had to put a fine point on things that Jack couldn't quite remember, meant he was feeling better. And the fact that he was doing it to joke around with his partner said that better was quite a bit. Woe to the medical staff at Phoenix, he laughed to himself.

"Alright, kid. Fair enough. I'll stay on bad dad duty if you still promise to get some rest. And maybe don't give anybody too hard a time tonight."

"All hard times I give are proportional to the amount of hassle I've been given to start with, Dalton." Jack started to craft a reply when Mac almost whispered, "Gotta go, man."

"What's the ma—"

"Night nurse. I'm all cooperative patient-ed out. So, far as she knows I'm sleeping … Good luck."

Mac ended the call before Jack could reply and turned onto his good side (which was maybe a relative term right now, but at least the one just ached from simple muscle fatigue and not a self-inflicted stab wound). He slid the phone under his pillow and closed his eyes, just as the nurse brushed aside the curtain to look in on him.

He thought maybe he'd dodged that particular annoying bullet, but he felt a hand on his arm seconds later and a soft voice apologizing for waking him, but saying firmly that she needed to get updated vitals. He sighed, but put up with it.

Then to reinforce how very unreasonable it was to wake a guy who was supposed to be resting just to verify he wasn't dead, he rolled back on his side and closed his eyes. His body apparently knew something that his brain hadn't gotten around to acknowledging yet, because he quickly drifted off again.

Mac slept fitfully. The overnight nurse tried to pretend it was because of the effects of the gas. Mac assured her it wasn't. It was being pestered, and fussed over, and generally handled more than he was interested in putting up with on his most patient pain free day. Which today was not.

He got pretty grouchy around two in the morning, when for what felt like the millionth time, he was woken up because someone had left orders for his vital signs to be taken every two hours, and blood every eight.

He finally snapped, "No, I don't want anything to help me sleep. I want to be left the hell alone. Go wake up whoever left the damned orders and bug them!"

He puffed out an exasperated breath, pulled up the blankets and rolled over onto his other side, almost letting out a yelp when he put pressure on his bad leg, but keeping it to himself, because that had been a very satisfying equivalent to slamming a door.

"So, Nurse Sullivan's assurance that you were feeling cooperative was inaccurate. I wonder what she'll say about it," the woman said, clearly not wondering at all.

"Wake _her_ up and ask her!"

He was not going to open his eyes again. Not even for the end of the damned world at the moment. He heard the nurse sigh dramatically and leave, and he almost smiled to himself.

He woke late the next morning to find that head nurse standing beside his bed. She was looking down at him, trying to appear as stern as possible, but he could see the smile in her eyes. There was only so yelled at you were going to get by someone who looked like they might want to laugh at you.

He made a very determined effort to roll smoothly onto his back and start raising the head of the bed, just like he didn't hurt in at least ten places he could identify without thinking about it. "Morning, Sully," he said pleasantly, as though he didn't know there was a nasty note on his chart.

"Morning, Mac," she offered, just as pleasantly. "How did you sleep?" she asked, baiting him to answer, whether honestly or not he couldn't be sure.

He decided to go with honest.

"Great, once I got your flying monkeys to stop doing your dirty work for you," he replied, but he said it with what he hoped was an appropriately good-humored smile.

She couldn't quite stop herself from laughing at that. "So, I'm the Wicked Witch of the West now? I've graduated from just being bossy and mean. I'll have to put in for a raise."

He laughed, too. "You probably should." He paused for a minute, face creasing with a question he wasn't sure if he should ask because the answer might be disappointing. "So, how is the me going home today thing looking?"

A wry smirk quirked up one side of her lips. "That depends."

"On what specifically?" If there was some checklist he had to tick off, he was going to get to work on it more like now than later.

"One whether or not you're going to let me get a set of vitals and labs for the doc to review this morning."

Mac just shrugged. "Sure, if it'll get me out of here."

"It's that easy, huh?" she gave him an actual disapproving look this time.

This time he grinned. "Hey, you didn't wake me up in the middle of the night."

0-0-0

By the time Phoenix Medical actually cleared him to leave, it was getting late. Jack offered to come give him a ride home, but Mac insisted that he was fine, that he didn't need a babysitter, he was just trading one bed for another infinitely more comfortable one.

After listening to a list of Jack's admonishments, he just promised the older man that he really would take it easy and he encouraged him to stick with his Elwood chasing project. One of the Phoenix staff would drive him home. What he would never say out loud to Jack was that he wanted to watch whatever was on that film alone. That whatever it was, he was worried about it.

When he got home, it was dark. Jack called again to make sure his partner was doing what he was supposed to. Worrying about your buddy dying once in a week was more than enough, he said. Mac just said all the right things, things he knew by heart were an effective shield against Jack seeing through it. In reality he was tired and he hurt, and he knew that feeling wasn't just there for a day or two, but could linger for a couple of weeks.

He gathered what he thought he might need and headed out onto the back deck. Setting up a projector wasn't that big a deal. Jack often liked to joke that all he needed to save the world was a pocket full of paper clips. Mac didn't know about that, but he did know that he could watch that restored fil with nothing more than a few office supplies and some odds and ends for his hiking backpack.

When he saw his own much younger self flicker to life, he had a moment of surprise, and not-quite-disappointment. He'd expected something earth shattering on here. Who hid an old role of film under the floor in a lockbox if that film was a kid playing with his dad.

Then he was sucked in by the scene. He remembered this, he thought. It was just an evening in his dad's workshop. When he was a kid, they did that all the time. He'd always been welcome in that space even when he was very small. His dad would patiently teach him about all the tools and materials while he worked. And as soon as he was old enough to used them, his father had let him help. Actually, he'd probably let him start helping well before he was old enough by anyone else's metric, just so he'd have something to do, to keep busy with, after his mom died.

Where did that guy in the video go? A small bittersweet smile flitted across his face, but was quickly replaced when he thought, 'Not just literally either'. He wanted to know how a loving father who could put that smile on his kid's face could up and abandon him on his tenth birthday of all days.

He was starting to feel a familiar and altogether unwelcome lump form in his throat. He'd seen enough. Like everything else on this weird search for his father, the film was another dead end. He was about to stop and take everything apart, when something caught his eye.

 _What the_ …

He looked at the film harder. The image that had first caught his eye hadn't gone away.

"What?" slipped out of his mouth without him even realizing he was talking to himself.

 _No, it can't be._

Mac did what he could to stop the film and adjust the image of the frame he stuck the real on.

"Matty!?"

He got up and walked closer to the screen, as if changing his perspective might somehow change the conclusion he'd already reached. If he'd been thinking clearly, he would have managed to be grateful for the fact that he was barely limping anymore.

Mac's sadly nostalgic expression dissolved into one of simple anger. As he stared at the image, which was undeniably a reflection of Matilda Webber, his expression transformed into one of white hot fury.

Then, just like it had taken on heat from his thoughts, the film bloomed its disintegration onto the screen in front of him.

"No, no, no, no, no, no!" He dashed over to the shoe box projector and blew out the fire that was already catching.

It didn't do any good. He thought the whole reel might be melted. He slammed down his fist in anger and frustration, and sat down hard on the stool he'd brought out here for the very purpose of watching that film. Partially because the short near sprint had hurt like hell and had black dots swimming in front of his eyes, and partially because if he stayed standing he thought he might be sick, not from the after effects of the nerve gas or his injured leg, but from the unchecked rage he was currently feeling.

Matty had pretended she'd barely even heard of him when she joined Phoenix. And now he knew she'd lied right to his face, over and over again.

He didn't know what this meant.

But he was sure as hell going to find out.


End file.
